County Seeks Funding for Water Testing Bradford County

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TOWANDA -- Commissioners in Bradford County say they support a proposed project to monitor groundwater. Susquehanna health system, Guthrie Health, Geisinger Health systems and the US Geological Survey want to keep tabs on about 70 private water wells in Bradford County.

"In the Penn state research that they have done, they have found that in Bradford County that about 40 percent of water wells that were tested failed one or more water quality standards in the EPA clean drinking water standards," said Daryl Miller.

People who live in Bradford County say it's a good thing if there's more water testing especially if you take into account of the hundreds of marcellus wells that have been drilled throughout the county.

"They should be testing water because we really don't know what we're getting into," said Kevin Abma of West Burlington." If we start getting bad wells with water at least we got backing with the water testing to show there is changes."

"I think it's a very good idea to have all the waters tested, not only once but stay up to date on it," said Virginia Brown.

Commissioners say the testing isn't just because of the drilling boom, but to make sure that the quality of water is good.

The project outline says that the tests will help determine if substances such as arsenic or methane are in the water. Researchers also hope to develop water protection programs based on their data.

"They got to stay on top of it because if they don't they're going to have problems," said Alden Brown.

Officials say there's no timetable for when the testing could start, the proposed project still needs 250,000 dollars in funding to get off the ground.